Put the hammer down

 It was the late '70s when a competitor was relaying a story about Dunbar from Grove City turning on the afterburners to win the half at a District meet.  Afterburners.  Wow, who doesn't like the story when someone just torches the field at the end?  We all have our favorites.  Who doesn't love Mills in '64, or Wottle in '72?  I've seen the Wottle one so many times I and still don't know if he's going to pull it off.  Interestingly, he supposedly negative split each 200m segment.  Word.

 When attending meets, I found it easier to yell, "Put the hammer down" rather than yelling an afterburner phrase.  So in life, if you are around me I'm constantly uttering this to both colleagues and complete strangers.   Hundreds if not thousands of times and not one person has ever questioned why I yelled this at them.  You know why?  I said it earlier, everyone loves the idea of being in the hammer zone.

 People liked Prefontaine because the hammer seemed to always be in operation.  Now here is a guy with legitimate sub 4:00 speed and he had to start way out.  You know why?  Because there are some really big hammers out there.  So big, I could never pretend to fathom for a second what that universe is like.  I remember in the day when Filbert Bayi was know to set a blistering pace off the bat in the mile.  In one old clip at an indoor meet, about 2-3 short laps in Pre decides to blow by him.  Forget about anything else, for me that's what was great for the sport.  Because in the end, I have no idea who won, but I enjoyed seeing the hammer come out.